Up to now, when mentioning the beauty of birds, people often think of peacocks first because of their colorful feathers. However, in the vast nature, with diverse animals, there are still other birds that are also extremely proud, gorgeous and even make people jealous of their beauty, and one of them is the Secretarybird – the golden bird in the village of long legs and long eyelashes.

With its striking appearance, the name “secretary bird” is very suitable for this special bird species.

Secretarybird or snake-eating kite, is a bird of the Sagittariidae family (scientific name Sagittarius serpentarius). In addition to the rigid, long and dry scientific names of this species, people often call it by another name, which is the secretary bird. They call it that because of its appearance with a tuft of feathers on its head like the quill pens or worn on the heads of secretaries in 18th century Europe. Besides the special name, hearing it once is memorable, secretarybird also has super long legs and super long, beautiful, glossy eyelashes that any woman would envy. This feature is proof that the name secretary is more suitable and memorable than any other name.

This bird is endemic to Africa, usually found in the grasslands and sparse savannas of the sub-Saharan region. It is easily recognized by its large body, somewhat resembling an eagle or a falcon. The average secretary bird is about 1.3m tall, weighs 3.3kg, is about 112cm to 150cm long, and has a wingspan of 191cm to 225cm. Because of this, it is larger than any other diurnal bird of prey.

Despite its somewhat “feminine” appearance, it is a notorious killer in the wild. It hunts by walking around in the grasslands, and when necessary, it can still accelerate to catch its prey. The secretary bird’s main food is small mammals, reptiles, birds, and insects. And true to its name, the snake eater, it cannot say no to snakes, even venomous snakes are no match for it.

When encountering prey, it will chase and use its beak and legs to attack the opponent until death. In addition, the snake-eating kite will spread its wings and raise the tuft of feathers behind its head to scare its prey. Some studies suggest that the terror bird that lived 5 million years ago in the dinosaur era also had the same hunting strategy.

Although they mainly move on the ground, and can travel more than 30km a day to hunt, that does not mean that secretary birds cannot fly.

With its long legs, the secretary bird is one of the birds with the strongest kicks in the animal world, one of its kicks has a “gentle” force of about 195 Newtons, 5-6 times stronger than its own body weight. It strikes so fast that the entire action only happens within 1/10 of the blink of an eye. Not only beautiful, strong, and powerful, the secretary bird is also equally intelligent, when hunting it knows how to take advantage of nearby fires, picking up trash everywhere to burn, making it impossible for small prey to escape the flames.

Secretary birds can mate at any time of the year, depending on the amount of food available at that time. The way to court a mate is very simple, the male and female will spread their wings and chase each other on the grassland. The couple will build their happy home together, they often use branches, fur, leaves, grass to make a large nest about 2.4m and will use it for many years. After hatching, the parents will take good care of the chicks, unlike many other birds of prey, secretary birds are super parents, raising their chicks very well, they will teach their chicks until they know how to hunt, fly and use their legs effectively. It takes about 12 weeks for the chicks to have enough feathers and wings, confidently going out to survive without their parents.

Secretary birds are one of the few birds of prey that can successfully raise their young.

Because of its uniqueness, the secretary bird has the honor of appearing on the logo and national flag of Sudan as a symbol of victory and on the military insignia of South Africa as a symbol of protection. Since 1968, the species has been protected by the African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and there are more and more practical activities from many zoos contributing to raising awareness of the importance of the species.

(Synthetic)